McCann’s insights are a great read

AOIFE BURKE’S BOOKSHELF

THIRTEEN WAYS OF LOOKING
By Colum McCann
Bloomsbury

ANY wise person knows that there is more than one way of looking at something. Seeing things from another person’s point of view, putting yourself in someone else’s shoes, removing your pre-conceived notions during an argument or a debate and assessing things from a more subjective standpoint.
On the literal side of things there are many different ways of looking at things: from different perspectives, through different media, from different sources. One person’s viewing of a work of art can be very different from another’s – just ask any lover of modern art and their dismissive counterpart.
Then, as anyone who has ever been tagged in an unflattering photo on Facebook will know, there are the cameras on the end of pretty much everybody’s fingers, ready to capture a moment you’ve experienced from your own viewpoint.
In Colum McCann’s Thirteen Ways of Looking, J. Mendelssohn reflects on his long life, from first his bed on awaking, to getting ready with the help of his home helper to meet his son for lunch, to waiting patiently in the Manhattan restaurant he regularly frequents for his son to wind up a business call.